Dave Newell Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Hi again. The D250S is described as a DC to DC charger which means it can be connected to any nominal 12 volt DC supply including the vehicle battery. I should have reccomended the D250S Dual which is the unit with the solar input, as far as Im aware this will split the charge to both engine and leisure batteries but I will double check on this point. The D250S does not start to pass current until the supply has shown 13.4 Volts for five seconds. If the engine battery is severely depleted the supply voltage will be lower until it is replenished to some extent, also as the D250S has a max charge rate of 20 Amps and even my old alternator can manage 55 Amps there should be no problem with recharging the engine battery. How often do motorhomes do a significant amount of start stop driving? They are rarely used as a multi drop delivery vehicle. A possible solution is to fit a cutoff switch in the supply to the D250S so that if your engine battery is low and you wish to give it the maximum available charge you simply switch offf the supply to the D250S, this is how I have mine wired. The D250S has a six stage charging regime so it will not overcharge your leisure batteries but given enough running time will get more charge into them than a standard alternator and split charge circuit can in the same time. I hope this clarifies some of your points, D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
80overland Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 Hi Dave thanks for the reply. I assume if you did connect the D250S to the vehicle battery it would perminantly pull it down to 13.4v before disengaging? Would that not be a potentially bad thing? Can I ask where you've seen that the D250S doesn't start to pass current till the supply shows 13.4v - I don't seem to be able to find anywhere. On one info sheet I found online it says that the D250S provides a "maintenance charge" to the starter battery. However, the wiring diagrams provided with unit would make that impossible as it takes its feed from the alternator or solar and the output side of the D250S is only connnected to the auxillary batteries. There is no way it can provide any sort of output to the starter batteries...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted January 19, 2011 Share Posted January 19, 2011 The engine battery will only ever attain 13.4 Volts or higher when it is being charged, either by the alternator or via an external charger so no the D250S would not permanently pull it down to 13.4V. Page five of the instruction booklet that comes with the D250S states that it doesn't start to pass current till the supply (engine battery) has shown 13.4 V or better for five seconds. The D250S Dual will provide a maintenance charge to the engine battery from solar (or alternative secondary supply) once the leisure battery is fully charged. It passes this charge down the supply wiring. Just a minor point but even if the supply wire is connected directly to the alternator it will still be connected to the engine battery as the connection point is the same as that used to provide power to the engine battery. hope this clarifies things for you. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
betsy Posted January 22, 2011 Author Share Posted January 22, 2011 First of all many thanks to everone who has contributed to this thread. It really has made interesting reading even if some of it has been a bit over my head. It was my initial intention to buy and install the CTEK C250S Dual but when Roadpro sent me an advance copy of their new catalogue that also details the CTEK Smartpass unit, I thought that it would be a good (if a little expensive) to go down that route as it looks as if my batteries would always be kept in tip top condition and I could leave my van permanently on hook up on the drive at home. My bit about sometimes only doing 40/60 miles between stops (when meandering around southern Europe .....very soon now I hope) was, with hindsight, probably a bit misleading. What I meant was would I have more of a charge put back into by leisure batteries at the end of such a short run using the CTEK gear than without it? I already have a CTEK battery charger which I use on various batteries around the farmhouse where we live. It has done an excellent job over the five or six years that we have had it - indeed, it pulled one particular leisure battery back almost from the dead when my other (old fashioned) charger failed to make any difference. I am informed that CTEK do not actually sell their products directly to the public. They do this through agents etc. and at least one of these (selling via the internet) calls itself something that would-be customers might well believe to be the factory itself. This is unfortunate. Pending the answer to one or two final questions that I have in respect of the above CTEK set-up in my own 'van (an 06 Fiat 2.8 JTD based Rapido), it is my intention to proceed with the purchase through the very helpful folk at Roadpro. Once fitted I will keep a fairly close eye on everything and will report back to all those of you who are interested via these pages (that should be in about April). Meanwhile, any last comments from any current users of the CTEK dual (particularly if you have knowledge/experience of it being connected to a Smartpass unit) would still be most welcome as my 'van is on a SORN until 1/2/11 so will not be buying/fitting the kit until then. Once again, many thanks to all who took the time to contribute. Cheers Dick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyishuk Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 I had a similar contact problem with Ctek and emailed Sweden direct, because of my anger at lack of reply from the UK. They replied in 24 hrs and the UK Agent contacted me direct, with a favorable outcome. It seems that the main seller of Ctek is not the UK agent, but a reseller who is good at selling but any enquiry gets stonewalled. At that time, Ctek UK were not happy about the situation. I think that this the link I used, butit was quite a while ago I was in contact with Ctek http://www.ctek.com/EN-GB/support/Contact.aspx Rgds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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